


long hair, doll lips

by thescatterbrain



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character, outdated use of gender language, projecting onto horror characters what do u want from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29493660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescatterbrain/pseuds/thescatterbrain
Summary: There's this new feeling churning over in Dan. Something that seems new but has been there for a while. He goes to the mirror to figure it out.
Relationships: Daniel Cain & Herbert West
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	long hair, doll lips

**Author's Note:**

> this is just because i love dan cain. warning for outdated use of gender language, specifically the old term for transgender. it's the 80s, so i mean..

Dan stared at the mirror, gripping the edge of the sink as he inspected his reflection. He still wore his blood-soaked shirt, dirtied from multiple soldiers and failed experiments. His eyes were not trained at the shirt, despite the way the blood was beginning to grow sticky and dry against his skin. Instead, Dan stared at his hair. It had been nearly four months since he had been in Peru, and his hair was growing long around his ears and neck.

He craned his head to the side to look at how his hair was traveling toward his shoulders, curling slightly at the ends. He traced the way the rising strands on the top of his head framed his face and began to fall more like bangs. Dan was finding himself liking it. His hair had been short for, well, his whole life. He had never really considered letting it grow long. But he liked it. He wanted it to get longer.

Dan's eyes shifted from his hair to his mouth, where the ever-present shadow of his stubble had gone darker than usual. He sighed, exasperated, and reached for his razor. His beard seemed to grow even faster in Peru than it did in Massachusetts. Dan hated it. He never liked his facial hair, even when his first few whiskers began sprouting. Dan didn't like most of his body hair that much. In addition to his face, he also shaved his chest, underarms, and forearms. It made him feel better to be mostly smooth and soft. Shaving was a hassle but an ever-present coat of hair was worse, in his opinion. 

The razor scraped against dry skin, tugging away hairs and softening the glare of the shadow. Dan ran his hand over the skin, feeling the sharp bumps of short stubble that did not smooth out perfectly. His upper lip was growing red, angry at how often he ran a blade over it. He returned the razor to its place and went back to staring at himself, bloody shirt still far from his mind. 

There was something about his reflection today that was making him pause. 

It wasn't his hair, or the needed shave. It wasn't the blood, obviously. That was more of a permanent accessory now. No, the thing that made Dan stare so intently was something new working up in his brain. Different angles of himself. A fresh realization. Old feelings with young attention.

Dan ran two fingers over his lips. His mom used to tell him he had doll lips, like the ones painted on his sisters' toys. His lips were plush and pink - so pink he had been accused of stealing gloss from his older sister's purse in the fifth grade. The upper lips held a pert cupid's bow, one that Meg used to trace all the time. Dan had always liked that. He liked that his mom thought he looked like a doll. He liked how soft this feature was.

Dan thought about his sisters, two older and one younger. He thought about the way they used to call him "one of the girls" and how that would make him roll his eyes but smile. Dan thought about his younger sister putting bows in his hair when she learned to tie them, and how she picked out the ribbons for him based on the sweater he was wearing. 

Dan thought about how he had hated when they had made him wear nail polish. How he had tried to get his oldest sister to take him to baseball games when she learned to drive. How his closet was carefully curated into soft button-up flannels and knitted sweaters, because Dan liked the boxy look it gave his frame. 

The new thing was starting to formulate a shape, but it was still unfamiliar to Dan. He stared harder, trying to dredge it from his mind onto the mirror.

His shoulders had gotten broader in Peru. His biceps were larger and more defined. The constant need to hold down howling soldiers and fend off surprise attacks and just keep up with the relentless war had sculpted Dan's body. He hadn't thought much of it at first; Dan had always been athletic, shapely. He has always liked how lean his frame was even at his strongest. But Peru had bulked him out, made him sharp and sinewy. Dan liked being strong. He liked being able to help people and be physically capable for them. He wasn't sure how he felt about looking muscular. His mouth twisted to the side as he glanced over his shoulders and exposed forearms. He usually avoided staring at his new musculature, he realized. It made him feel off about himself. Dan didn't think most guys would find sudden muscles an issue.

A small puzzle piece clicked into place in his brain. Dan was onto something, but he still wasn't sure what.

He smoothed his hands down the sides of his face, watching his skin stretch and pull over sharp cheekbones and an angular jaw. He had always liked his face, so why did he feel the need to poke and prod it right now? Maybe because his skin still stung from his dry shave, the third one in as many days. Maybe because he had suddenly tanned so quickly and gained a new set of scars. Maybe because Dan was figuring out a secret about himself, one that he hadn't even known he was hiding.

Herbert walked into the bathroom, not even bothering to knock. "Christ, Dan, are you going to spend all evening in here? I need to use the restroom too, you know."

Dan pulled himself away from the mirror, slowly. "Sorry, Herbert," he said, not really caring. "Got distracted."

"Yes, I'm sure your reflection is especially alluring."

Dan twisted his fingers in one hand. "Herbert, can I ask you something?" He was never one to keep his mouth shut. 

Herbert's brows went up quizzically. Dan knew they would, and somehow, he knew Herbert would have the answer. "Yes, Daniel?"

"Is there a word for, I don't know…..not feeling like you fit in with other guys?"

He watched Herbert's face set stony and hard. Dan didn't know how he should read that expression. "Wait until I use the restroom," Herbert ordered. "This conversation can be handled on a full bladder."

Dan let him into the bathroom and stared down at his now brown, crusty shirt. It was stuck to his skin. Dan grimaced and carefully peeled it off, chucking it into the basket of other similarly stained shirts. He would be annoyed at himself later that he didn't soak the shirt to prevent the blood from staining. He pulled on a shirt that wasn't quite fresh - one that would need to be washed anyways so Dan didn't feel bad about leaving it against his blood-crusted skin. He wondered, _Do I try to hide my body from myself? Don't most guys just go shirtless if they have the option?_

The door opened again and Herbert walked out. He gave Dan a hard stare. "Sit down," he said. Dan listened, perching on the edge of his small cot. "What do you mean by that?"

Dan shrugged. "I'm not sure. They’re the only words I can get that come close to what I'm thinking."

"Do you understand what you're talking about?" Concern was creeping on the edges of Herbert's voice, coloring it with a higher octave. Dan frowned at him.

"No? I'm not sure."

"Daniel, are you a woman?" The question didn't quite sound blase, but delivered in Herbert's even, steady voice it sounded like how he would ask Dan, _"What's for dinner?"._

"What? No!"

"Okay. That will get us somewhere then."

Dan felt hot, like he was blushing. He wasn't sure why. He realized that it wasn't because he was offended by Herbert's question, just really caught off guard. And yet, it didn't feel that far from what he had been trying to get at . . .

"Well, not a woman . . ." Dan said slowly. "But maybe not quite a man either?"

Herbert stared at him, examining Dan the way he would a corpse or experiment. Thin fingers rested against his cheek and temple while he thought, mulling over Dan's words as his brain churned out possible answers.

"There's no word for it. None that I know of," Herbert said finally. "And certainly not one that we will find while still here."

"It's not weird or anything, right?"

Herbert shrugged. "Since when was I a good gauge on strangeness?" That made Dan crack a smile. "But no, Dan, I doubt you are one of a kind in this regard."

They sat in silence for a while, but Dan barely noticed. His mind was racing, ideas folding over each other as this discovery coursed through him. He wasn't who he thought he had been for so long. He was still Dan Cain, M.D. and assistant to macabre research, but maybe no longer the same golden boy people had always propped him as. Would this really affect much? Would this make him dress differently? Change his hair, lose the muscle, let the pink socks in his closet float to the top again? Would it at least help him learn a better way to keep his beard from growing so quickly?

Dan realized his leg was bouncing while he stared at Herbert, too caught up in his thoughts to look away politely. Herbert stared back, concern and confusion twisting his otherwise hard expression.

"Dan?" he asked cautiously. Dan stood up, suddenly vibrating with energy.

"I'm fine, Herbert," he said quickly. "It just feels like my whole life has come crashing into this one realization and now I feel like a different person just because I didn't know this before." He was pacing, crossing the very short distance between his cot and the door. "Nothing will change for me or anyone except that I'll _know_ this and hardly anyone else will and I still don't even _know_ what _this_ is! Am I transsexual? Am I something else? I don't know and this feels like an inappropriate place to think about it when we need to amputate a new person each day!"

Herbert was silent while he watched Dan shout his feelings. It wasn't unusual; Herbert rarely interrupted his emotional outbursts. But it still made Dan feel vulnerable. He was having a fucking identity crisis and Herbert just _watched_ , like Dan was something observable. It was stressing him out. 

"You don't have anything to say?" he snapped, perhaps a bit unfairly. "Because if so I think I've earned a prize."

Herbert rolled his eyes at Dan. "You're lucky to have me here for this, Dan. I think I'm uniquely situated to understand what you're dealing with."

"Oh, I would love to know how." Still sarcastic, still biting, still desperate for an ounce of comfort or help.

"I myself am transsexual."

That made Dan stop pacing (though his hands kept fidgeting, impulsively). He gaped at Herbert, wondering how this information had remained hidden for so long. He was only met with a cool, hard glare.

"That is why I never told you," Herbert said, as if he could read Dan's mind. With how long they had lived together he might as well. "I knew you would look at me like that."

Dan heard the edges of Herbert's voice bleed with his usual frustration and irritation, but self-consciousness added a slight strain to the sound. Dan closed his mouth quickly, clacking his teeth together, and waited patiently for Herbert to keep talking. 

"I asked if you were a woman because what you said to me sounded similar to . . . how I figured this out myself," Herbert continued. He seemed relieved that Dan had stopped gawking. "I've only known a couple people who describe themselves as you do - as, I suppose, gender neutral. Does that sound accurate, Dan?"

Dan mulled the words over, turning them in his mind and tasting them on his tongue. They had a strange shape - they fit together, they made sense, but they were still foreign to Dan. And yet, he found a strange comfort in them. An odd familiarity. Old feelings with young attention.

"It sounds . . . close. Closer than I would have gotten on my own." He looked up at Herbert, who seemed about ten feet tall with how he glowed. Dan had stroked his ego just by allowing this armchair diagnosis, but Dan didn't care. It didn't matter. "Thank you, Herbert," he said.

"Of course, Dan." Herbert made for the door, but paused. He hesitated, longer than Dan had ever seen him, and forced out, "Please, erm, tell me if you would like me to use a different name for you. Or pronoun. If you want." It made Dan smile. Herbert left before Dan could respond. He wondered when the scientist would realize he never changed out of his bloody clothes.

He curled a finger into his growing hair, twisting the strands and tugging gently. Long hair, doll lips, and lean muscle. These were all parts of Dan Cain right now, and he was finding peace in that. A strange kind of gender neutral peace.


End file.
